Miniatures Games

Archive for the ‘Miniatures Games’ Category

Early yesterday, Renegade Game Studios unleashed the Kickstarter for Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid, a new cooperative board game based on Saban’s beloved series TV series. In just over 24 hours, the crowdfunding campaign has amassed pledges reaching more than $150,000 – easily funding the project with more than 22 days left. The love for Power Rangers, which first launched in the United States in 1993, obviously remains strong in the gaming community.

Heroes of the Grid will provide 2-5 players a set of ability cards for each Ranger, and miniatures in the appropriate colors. The core game will also include miniature figures and game stats for Bones, Rita Repulsa, Pudgy Pig, Madame Woe, and the ever-present Putty warriors the Power Rangers must guard against. Gameplay will last 45-60 minutes, wherein players will defend sections of Angel Grove against invading villains. The game was designed by Jonathan Ying, who worked on Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Warhammer 40k: Forbidden Stars, and DOOM: the Board Game.

Multiple expansions are built into the KS campaign, including Shattered Grid, which will have additional challengers from the BOOM Studios comic series, including the Ranger Slayer, Black Dragon, and Lord Drakkon himself. Another expansion, White Light, will bring in the White Ranger, increase the maximum players to 6, and call Lord Zedd to the fray. Added figures and component upgrades are planned as stretch goals, which are likely to be unlocked if the campaign maintains momentum.

If you’ve always wanted to be a Power Ranger and face down nasty foes from other dimensions, you owe it to yourself to give Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid a look. The game is expected to release in Spring 2019.

(Why were the evil foot soldiers called “putty” anyway? I never got that. Were they squishy and soft? No, that can’t be right…)

Okay, the flood of KublaCon photos has reached its peak, and all are now neatly contained in OgreCave’s KublaCon 2017 photo gallery (over at our Facebook page). Final attendee count was reportedly 3,321 – a good sized show! See if you can spot yourself in our gallery, or rather, see if you got spotted by our photo crew.

We’re working on a few things behind the scenes, but as soon as we have goodies to share, we’ll serve them up. In the meantime, enjoy the pics, and tell us what you loved about this year’s KublaCon.

Around the Cave these past few months, Real Life (TM) has been busy, so gaming has suffered. But even hibernating ogres need to stretch, wake up, and hunt for good gaming now and then. To facilitate a good hunt for everyone, we have a new(ish) video from CelestiCon (going on this weekend in Fremont, CA. Okay, yeah, this is from the 2014 show – we’re way behind on posting this). Get a glimpse of this great convention for game enthusiasts of all varieties, listen to Luke Laurie from the League of Gamemakers talk of the League’s mission and CelestiSpiel, a haven for game developers to test game prototypes, and come out to the show this weekend if you can.

In our first show of the new year, we’re already covering a lot of ground. In just the first half of the podcast, we go from Allan’s first impressions of Dungeons & Dragons: Fifth Edition to Mike’s obsession with space games, and back around to enjoying Magic: The Gathering after many years of abstinence. Then we drag out a pair of surprise gaming artifacts, speak of upcoming conventions, and more.

Click here for show details and to listen to the new episode. As always, share and enjoy. We’ll have a report on the happenings at DunDraCon 2015 in our next episode.

For the Cave dwellers, the start of convention season is heralded by DunDraCon. Now that the annual gaming event and its impending awesomeness are nearly here, this seems like the time to premiere our DunDraCon promo video. Take it away, Sparky! (Be sure to subscribe on YouTube to see all of OgreCave’s video goodness.)

We’re back, and ready to talk all things gaming. To wrap up the year and prepare for new things, we have a brand new episode of our long-dormant (hibernating?) podcast show, the OgreCave Audio Report. Now redubbed 2.0, the relaunch episode has Mike and Allan talking of the holidays, Kickstarter goodies, interpersonal issues in game groups, and GamerGate, among other things.

In our final KublaCon 2014 video, we manage to grab a few minutes with Japji Khalsa, Executive Producer and founder of KublaCon. In this video, we learn about the CCG-derived origins of the convention, how game designers use the show for their own nefarious ends, and some of the latest improvements to the overall KublaCon experience. You’ll get a small tour of Hyatt amenities, a few words from this year’s exhibitors about the convention, and glimpses of other KublaCon activities, between segments. In all, if you haven’t figured out KublaCon is “The Khan of Cons” yet, you simply haven’t been paying attention!

Have a look at all six KublaCon videos, and be sure to subscribe on YouTube to get all our upcoming video coverage. We’ll have some new things soon. No, really.

The KublaCon 2014 coverage is continuing on OgreCave’s new YouTube channel with three more interviews. This time we sit down with Jason Topolski of Ameritrash Games to hear about Camp Grizzly, the ’70s horror movie board game. Then we speak with referee Brian Denmark about the Star Wars: X-Wing tournament he’s running to see what’s involved in running a competitive convention event. We eventually find Vern Roberts, a member of KublaCon’s staff, preparing to oversee the carnage of the Megadungeon crawl, a massive player-versus-player Pathfinder tournament which uses over $10,000 of Dwarven ForgeMasterMaze miniature scenery. You’ll catch glimpses of other KublaCon activities between these interviews.

Have a look, and be sure to subscribe on YouTube to get all our upcoming video coverage, including some new things we’re working on.

We’re continuing to fill OgreCave’s new YouTube channel (which you should totally subscribe to) with great footage from KublaCon 2014. In the latest installment, we talk with Buddy Wagner of Dire Ninja Media about P.E.R.K. – the Pretty Easy Roleplaying Kit. Then we take a look at the DiceShield from Andy Rothfusz and Questo Gizmo LLC. Finally, Mac Senour tells us about GameRustlers and how it keeps the gaming flowing at conventions. You’ll catch glimpses of other KublaCon activities between each interview as well.

As the long weekend looms on the horizon, OgreCave is continuing to celebrate the launch of our new YouTube channel with another great interview from KublaCon 2014. This time we talk with Josh Qualtieri of Zombiesmith, and learn all about a variety of projects: War of Ashes: Shieldbash; a still-unnamed War of Ashes novel; his partnership with Flytrap Factory, and multiple Flytrap/Zombiesmith joint ventures; the War of Ashes: Fate of Agaptus RPG coming late 2014 from Evil Hat Productions; and the figures for Camp Grizzly, a cool new board game from Ameritrash Games.

Have a look, and be sure to subscribe to get all our upcoming video coverage.

The 40th annual Origins Awards were given out Saturday night. The details of said nominees and winners are a bit hard to find, so we thought we’d compile them for you here. Or all the ones we could find, at least.

As usual, it’s a great list of game products, and OgreCave extends hearty congratulations to all the nominees and winners.

As you can see, a few details are missing (and if you’ve got them, please, let us know in the comments). Why? Mainly because this is cobbled together from a variety of sources, but not from GAMA’s Origins Award page. As of this post, the GAMA site had neither the nominees nor winners listed. Now, GAMA has been quoted before as not wanting to become the Oscars of tabletop gaming (funny, since it’s an academy that puts forth the nominees), but not advertising your awards on your own site? That’s just shooting yourself in the foot.

I say, if fans and publishers want to build up your brand for you, give them the tools to do so – or at the very least, don’t sabotage the process. But maybe that’s just me.

With Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other campaigns regularly raising impressive sums for all sorts of projects, it’s easy to become numb to all the hype. Some companies merely use the fundraising sites as a preorder system, while others bend over backwards to create every possible backer-exclusive chotchkie, tempting the completist collector that lurks in us all. The best of these campaigns are the ones falling somewhere inbetween – those that offer an impressive, worthwhile product with additions/”stretch goals” that enhance the original product, or better yet, are worthwhile on their own.

For gamers, at least one such worthwhile campaign is the TableTop Season 3 – with Wil Wheaton campaign on Indiegogo (which, when phrased that way, makes excellent host Wheaton sound kinda like a side order. “Make mine a mushroom burger, medium rare, with a side of garlic Wil Wheaton.”). Having already cleared its $500K goal to bring viewers a new 15 episode season, backers have helped TableTop achieve additional goals. These include an additional 5 episodes, custom dice, DVDs, t-shirts, posters, commemorative coins… you get the idea, and maybe you aren’t impressed – you’ve heard all this before. Where things really get interesting is the lofty region of unlocked coolness TableTop fans are striving for in these last 11 days of fundraising. At $800K, fans already secured a free downloadable game designed by Mike Selinker, James Ernest (Lone Shark and Cheapass Games, anyone?), and TableTop host Wil Wheaton. At $900K, fans will unlock a special Cards Against Humanity expansion designed just for the TableTop campaign. Finally, at $1 million, the Geek & Sundry network founded by Felicia Day (co-creator of TableTop) will create a whole new RPG show, hosted by Wil Wheaton, in the style of TableTop. At the rate pledges keep coming in for the show, these goals are ambitious, but certainly achievable. Go on – visit the TableTop pledge page and hit refresh every few minutes. You’ll see.

So, with various TableTop goodies, a free game designed by Wil Wheaton and two award-winning designers, and the potential for both an expansion to the most popular rude party game and another whole show, this seems like the direction part of your gaming funds should go.

Today we’re taking a look back at DunDraCon 2013, where far too much gaming pleasure was had by everyone who attended. Firstly, we have a Gaming News Update interview with Josh Qualtieri of Zombiesmith. It had been a while since we last caught up with Josh, so the conversation ranges from This Quar’s War and where the game is going next, to Kickstarter and why it isn’t always necessary, to the upcoming War of Ashes game and its factions – some already available to prep for combat. Have a listen, and tell us what you think.

We’ve also posted a DunDraCon 2013 image gallery on our Facebook page, so be sure to take a look through and comment, if so inclined. If you become a fan of OgreCave while you’re there, in order to hear about everything we’re up to, that’s even better.

Other podcastery will be afoot soon, so keep an eye on our podcasts page for more info as it materializes.